


Purple Prose

by InsomniacCyanide



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Multi, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, SO, Unhealthy Relationships, but daverose is endgame, but ends up happy in the end, cronus shows up for like two paragraphs and is never mentioned again, erifef is implied, i made it a lot more positive than my other fics, it starts with toxic erirose, kanaya isnt really in this, like starts off really fucking shitty comedy, not like funny haha comedy, ripperoni, same for john, shes mentioned tho, this is a comedy, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7846261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniacCyanide/pseuds/InsomniacCyanide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You make order out of the wild flowers. You don’t relocate them; you simply turn them into much more manageable beauties. You tear out the weeds, but the flowers still look like they’re dying. You feel so sad that they still look dead. You pulled out all the weeds, why can’t they become alive again? Why are they still falling to pieces?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple Prose

Living in the Ampora house was not an easy task, especially when one wasn’t there of their own volition. Well, granted, this is what you chose for yourself. Marry rich and have the time to continue your novel without being disturbed, but it was still a daunting task when you were not holed up in the observatory that you insisted be added. You persisted out of principle, really. It’d feel odd without an observatory in such a grandeur house. You suppose it’s an homage to your mother and her tastes. She would have used that observatory well.  
You use it as an official office, and as an unofficial hiding spot. No one is allowed to enter the observatory without your explicit permission. No one disrespects this rule of yours, as it’s one of the few you have. You’re adamant about your rules, because they’re what makes you feel in control. Eridan is not a bad husband, but he is a bad lover.  
Not that you mind, you don’t consider him a lover in any sense of the word. He’s a ring on the ladder, something to step over to get where you need to go. He acts loving towards you, and you act cold in return. You are not warm, and you are not nice. He is not cold and he is not mean. He is desperate for attention of any kind, he wants to be noticed to be loved and heralded. He goes to extremes for things you don’t understand. He is easy to understand. But you don’t understand one simple thing about him.  
That thing of course, being Feferi.  
He loves Feferi so adamantly, with such care, and with such earnest. It’s hard for you not to feel bad for the poor man. He goes to you because he has no one else who will accept any offers he gives. Only you, just you. He hates you, and you return the favor half-heartedly. You’re mostly indifferent towards him. He doesn’t mean much in your eyes.  
You mean the world to him, but he doesn’t love you. You are an anchor to reality, the cold harsh hand of the ocean on a dreamer romanticizing such a turbulent and violent entity. You’re not soft, and you never will be. He never realizes that soon enough, not soon enough before he hurts himself in your currents. You pull him downwards into the haze that is alcoholism with full clarity, and he pulls you upwards towards riches and fame without realizing it. It’s a relationship filled with spite and bitterness, and yet, you still feel so angry when he speaks of Feferi fondly.  
Your heart aches every day you spend in the Ampora mansion. Some days his visit to Feferi ends in success, and he comes home happy and you feel awful and betrayed. You don’t know why, because you don’t feel anything akin to love towards him at all. There’s nothing in your eyes when you look at him, there’s no jump of the heart, there’s no affection. He’s just a fixture in your life that you somehow grew attached to.  
And then he begins to kiss you.  
He does it casually, as if he has always done this. You allow him, if only to feel as special as you want to feel. You want to feel as if you matter in the long run, as if you have purpose. You know you don’t, but the feeling is enough to make you ride high for days.  
He visits Feferi again.  
He comes home with hickeys and you don’t allow him to kiss you.  
You think you start falling in love with solitude. You begin to avoid him, because the hickeys become numerous. You want to own him, because you want to know you own someone completely. It is unhealthy, and you are abusive and abrasive, but you accept who you are. You’re cold and harsh and unlovable in every sense of the word. You’re difficult, and you know it, and you own it.  
You are Rose Lalonde and you are demanding and cynical, you are smart and sarcastic, and you own every inch of the estate that lies in someone else’s name.  
And you own him. 

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬By this time, you realize you are lonely.  
You go to the cemetery and visit your mother’s grave. You miss her dearly, despite having not even attended her funeral. You loved her, you realize, as you stare at the stone that marks where her body resides. You feel that turmoil in your soul. You want to be lusted after, you want to be loved and heralded, but not in the same way Eridan wants to be. You want to feel as if you matter, you want to feel that in any way you can because you know if you didn’t want for it, or strive for it, you would never get it. You’re forgettable, but you’re intense. You know things no man nor woman would ever dream of knowing. You are cold, so so cold, and everyone else is so dampened. They can’t match up to your mind, to your soul.  
You are difficult to love.  
You drop flowers off at your mother’s grave, and make amends with her corpse.  
All you have is her corpse.  
You come back to her grave every Sunday. 

Eridan grows more distant. You stay the same. You visit your mother’s grave and you whisper to her. You tell her things you don’t tell anyone. There is a bench in front of her grave. You bring fresh flowers every time you visit and switch out the old ones. You don’t throw them away, but you set them on other graves, graves without flowers or gifts. You read their names and give them stories and personalities and you talk to them as if they can hear you.  
You block out the rest of the world when you make these stories. You line every grave with petals and sugar from the treats you eat as you trudge around the cemetery. It passes the time. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes its sunny. You like the rainy days, because then you can feel things. You can feel the water fall on your head and the cool mist that rises and the way the wind smacks you in the face and reminds you that you’re real. You’re human.  
A new grave appears. No one visits it. You plant seeds in the fresh mound of dirt that has yet to be trodden down and reminded of it’s insignificance. Plants grow there soon enough, they’re small but you call them your children. You continue your ritual. You begin a method that gets flowers to all the graves that lie forgotten, and leaves the regularly visited ones be. Your favorite is your mother’s and the newest addition, one Mr. Strider. You remember the name from somewhere, but you don’t care much for it’s significance.  
Eridan begins to get aggressive with you when you’re out of the observatory. He gets angry with you easily, and you can tell the hickeys have ceased appearing. His visits with Feferi have stopped being fruitful. You own him completely once more, but he is no longer able to steel himself from getting into physical altercations with you.  
He hits you and you hit back but you can never hit hard enough. Not hard enough to satisfy the rage that builds in your soul as things escalate further. He demands you give him affection, that you give him your love and attention, and you refuse because what gain will you receive? He says he will give you nothing in return, so you decline, no matter how many bruises and split lips you get. You are stubborn, and fierce, and he cannot handle you.  
He doesn’t touch you in the observatory. He can’t even come near you in the observatory. No one dares to enter the observatory. It’s your favorite place to be. No one can reach you when you’re pretending to stargaze. And in a way, you are stargazing, even in daylight. Because here you feel as if you’re floating through black water amongst glowing bugs and fire. You feel empty here, in the observatory. It is not the usual emptiness you feel in your life. It is not the emptiness you feel when Eridan yells at you to give him some emotion, a smile, a frown, a voice, anything. It is not the emptiness where you feel the absence of your mother, the only person who could truly love you because she knew how to love you, and the aches she left by loving too much.  
It’s an emptiness where you feel every emotion you hold back so adamantly slide past your fingertips. It’s the emptiness that leaves you feeling as if the world doesn’t matter, and you are the only creature breathing out in an empty void. You exist on your own, a light in the dark, a glowing fixture where you can freely smile and feel and be a human being. You feel empty here, empty of responsibility. It’s a good empty. You love the observatory. You don’t know what else you love.  
You know you used to love your mother, but you can’t still love her. She’s dead, she’s just a shell, an empty body. You know you love the observatory. You love tea. You love flowers. You used to think you loved Eridan, but you don’t know. You think you might’ve at some point, but you’re sure you don’t now.  
You love visiting the cemetery.  
You visit the cemetery every day now, because you can’t stay in the observatory forever. Eridan never follows you to the cemetery, because this is also where his father is buried and the wound of him is still fresh. You’re there every day. Someone keeps throwing away the flowers you leave at Mr. Strider’s grave. So now you buy two new bouquets of flowers every time you visit. One for your mother, and one for Mr. Strider.  
Someone keeps taking the flowers away from Mr. Strider’s grave. You leave a note asking why they keep removing the flowers. It takes a while before you get a response, and you can see someone leaving the cemetery. That’s odd. Normally it’s just you at this time of day. You feel eyes on you when you pick up the note that was left.  
“He was an asshole. He doesn’t deserve flowers.”  
You can’t argue with that.  
You stop leaving flowers at Mr. Strider’s grave.  
You start writing your novel again, and include all of the stories you’ve made at the cemetery. You leave out the stories you made about your mother and Mr. Strider. You do type them up in a separate stack of papers. You use your typewriter so much your hands begin to ache and the buttons begin to squeak. You like the sound, it is comforting to you.  
Eridan begins to back off slowly, and you can see hickeys returning. He has a scar on his face still from when you scratched him. You’re glad. He bugs you just outside the observatory now, shouting at you through the door. You never make a reply, but you do cry when he talks about your mother. He doesn’t bring her up again.  
He stops showing up at the observatory door, and someone starts showing up at the cemetery gate. You don’t know him, but he looks familiar. You don’t pay him any mind as you continue your routine. You skip over Mr. Strider. You talk to your mother a bit longer than usual, give her an update on your life. She doesn’t reply, but you think she would be proud of your progress on your novel.  
Eridan stops being so aggressive towards you, and you stop antagonizing him. He still glares at you across the dinner table, and he still asks you desperately what he did wrong to make you become so cold towards him. He talks and talks about how he used to think you loved him. You don’t think you ever did, and you voice that when you tell him he’s not in love with you, that he’s in love with Feferi. You tell him when he kissed you, he saw Feferi instead of you. You don’t act like Feferi. You aren’t sweet and nice and chaste.  
You are scalding and rude and unapologetic. He throws a glass at you that cuts your cheek as it shatters against the table in front of you. You bleed, but you don’t feel it. You stare at him, intense and angry and he gets up and leaves and you can feel his shame from across the room. He retreats to his chambers, and you treat your wound in the bathroom. You spend the night in the observatory instead of in your shared bed.  
You return to the cemetery the next day with a nasty scar from it. The man at the gate sits in a bench a little closer to you, and you don’t pay him any mind as you begin your ritual of giving your mother new flowers and passing the old ones down along the line. The flowers you put down are always purple, for royalty, for nobility, luxury, power, and ambition, wealth, extravagance, creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence. Purple is the calm stability of blue, but the passion of red. You lean more towards blue, because that’s who you are. You’re a storm, but you are just the eye of the storm, the center of the chaos. You mask the issue, because you are the center of it.  
The man that was at the gate begins to walk with you when you perform your rituals at the cemetery. He doesn’t comment on your nasty scar, and he doesn’t talk much. He usually only has sarcastic comments to bring to the table when he does talk. You find him amusing. You build off of his inane jokes that start and stop abruptly. You learn not to question it.  
He begins to talk more around you, and you let him. He helps flesh out the stories you make of the deceased. You don’t ask for his name, and he doesn’t ask for yours. You like that about him, he doesn’t question you. He doesn’t ask about things you don’t want him to. He never comments on any bruises that arise every once in a while, and he doesn’t talk about your mother. In return, you do the same. You don’t bring up the fading scars or the way he jumps at loud noises. You don’t bring up Mr. Strider around him, whatever their relations may be. You let him talk, and he lets you talk.  
You find yourself laughing around him, because it’s hard not to. He laughs with you sometimes, and sometimes he just stares at you. He does that a lot the more time you spend together at the cemetery. He stares and you stare back.  
You bring excerpts of your novel for him to read. It’s almost finished. He calls it purple prose. You punch him arm lightly. There’s no malice behind the gesture, and you don’t hit hard. He winces anyways and you apologize profusely. He says it’s fine. It’s not fine and you can see it in the way he draws back from you. So you leave with the guilt still on your tongue. That may just be blood from the tongue you bit down on when you saw the mildly hurt look in his eyes.  
You know it wasn’t the hit that mattered, it was the fact that you did it. You feel so bad and when you return to your home you don’t even call Eridan out for leaving his breakfast on the table again. You hole yourself up in the observatory and type out another story about your mother and Mr. Strider. Then you crumple it and toss it across the room and start another one. You type out your frustrations with yourself, and at some point you just forget what you’re doing. You find unfamiliar words leak onto the pages.  
You write on your walls when you’re asleep. You’ve moved fully to the observatory now, and the walls are littered with your writings. It’s all the word ‘meow’, unrecognizable symbols, and various defacing words against you. But you know you’re the one writing it, so it doesn’t hold much weight. Though, it does cause some serious introspection.  
Eridan notices when you don’t go to the cemetery for two days. He confronts you about it over dinner. You give a scathing reply, and he almost chokes you out, but he never goes away without his own wounds to lick. You scratch and bite and punch. You never think you hurt him enough, but he always pulls away. This time you break his nose, and you’re released. He swears at you, and you spit out a few insults before he retreats to his room. You clean up the mess and retreat to the observatory for the night. You miss the man at the cemetery.  
You return after that incident, and he doesn’t question you about it, but he does look concerned.  
“I’m sorry.” You say.  
“No you’re not.” He replies with. He’s not wrong.  
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m not sorry I hit you.”  
“Why not?”  
“Hitting people feels good sometimes. It’s relieving.”  
He nods, but you know he doesn’t feel the same. You can’t feel bitter about it, and you don’t look at him any differently. You are more careful, of course. You don’t want him to leave. You don’t want him to stop talking to you. You live for moments at the cemetery. You continue writing your novel to show the man at the cemetery. You write it to make him laugh and you don’t hit him when he calls it purple prose, or you. He calls you purple prose, over complicated, hard to understand. You call him red. The color linked to the most primitive physical, emotional, and financial needs of survival and self-preservation. You study him, scrutinize every action and analyze every sentence. He finds it annoying and tells you to knock it off. You decline, though it is all in good humor at the time.  
He shys away from your touch. You say you won’t hurt him, and you never will. He says he doesn’t believe you. You keep your distance. You ache for any kind of contact outside of Eridan. You want to be raised and worshipped. You want to feel loved. You want to be the center of the universe.  
You break the static with the man at the cemetery after Eridan wounds you deeply after mentioning the mistake you made that led to your mother’s death. You hate him. You hate Eridan but you could never abandon him because he is like you. He wants to be loved and he wants to feel love. He wants to be the center of everything. You do too.  
You tell the man your name. He tells you his.  
He’s Dave Strider. You’re Rose Lalonde.  
It’s familiar and you don’t feel like putting forth the effort of remembering it’s significance.  
Your talks get more personal after that. He talks to you about Terezi. You talk to him about Eridan, if sparingly. He tells you about his job as a film director, former photographer. You tell him that you’re writing a novel at the moment along with a series of short stories, and that you used to be a therapist. He finds that unsurprising. You laugh and ask why he’s in the area.  
“Just taking a break I guess. Once the year ends I’ll be going back to California.”  
“That’s disappointing.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“I enjoy your company.”  
He gives you a funny look, a look of confusion, but behind the cloud of it you can see he subconsciously knows what you mean. He doesn’t comment on it. You find that boring.  
Eridan gets promoted. He starts going away for weekends. You find this alleviates your pain. You begin to invite Dave to the estate when Eridan is away. He doesn’t ever stay for long, and that disappoints you. But you don’t comment on it, because you know how he is. Sometimes he tells you how Terezi doesn’t understand, how she keeps thinking that it was fine because it was supposedly training and that she was the reason it took so long to figure out that it was abuse in the first place. You sympathize with him, but you know you’ll never understand, so you hug him instead. He doesn’t pull away this time. You think you’re starting to regain the trust you lost when you hit him.  
Over time, he begins to stay longer. You tell more secrets to each other. You’re less volatile around him. He says that you’ve gotten less sharp, less menacing. You take it as an insult. Being sharp and mean is what’s kept you alive for such a long time. He sees the hurt in your face before you can say anything, and he apologizes and corrects himself. He thinks you’re easier to be around, but still strong. You smile, and he smiles back for the first time in a while. You love this.  
You add it to the list of things you love. 

You love the observatory. You love tea. You love flowers. You love writing. You love being around Dave Strider.  
Eridan slowly begins to vanish from you. He slips from your grip like sand. You don’t find you mind so much. Eridan indulges himself in the pleasures of the body. He goes out into the night and does things with other women who are too drunk to realize his slimy ways. He ignores you entirely now, and you’re almost grateful for it. But you feel the need to lash out for attention. You want to be the only focus. You want everyone you meet to see you and only you.  
You want to shine like the sun. You want to draw everyone in. You want to wrap them up in your gravity and pull them down under into your own freezing depths. You want everyone around you to freeze. You want to be known.  
And you used to be, to Eridan. You used to control him. He would lash out, yes, and you would retaliate, but he would always do as you expected him to. He would always do what you said if you pressed hard enough, that’s how you got your safe place. That’s how you got the observatory. And that’s also how you got the swan bed.  
Originally, the swan bed was a joke that started while observing the lake with Dave. The conversation was odd from start to finish, but the topic of a swan bed was brought up. The joke was taken too far, but it was hilarious to you. Now one of your guest rooms has the frame around the mattress in the shape of a swan with severe neck issues. You display your accomplishments proudly to Dave with gusto. He laughs for five minutes straight with you joining in at random intervals between the deadpan looks and sarcastic commentary.  
You decide you really love his laugh.  
You love the observatory. You love tea. You love flowers. You love writing. You love being around Dave Strider. You love Dave’s laugh.  
You think he might like yours too. But you can’t be sure. You don’t know what he likes. Except perhaps Terezi, but even you can see the affection for her is waning. You feel like you’re looking for something every time you look at him, but you don’t know what. You get lost in thought. You get lost in him.  
He tells you more about his life. And in return, you tell him about Kanaya. You loved Kanaya. You don’t love her anymore. He tells you he gets it. He tells you about how he used to love John. You both are understanding. For once.  
The small plants that grew from Mr. Strider’s grave begin to grow into beautiful little things. You and Dave avoid talking about them for a while, but you do tend to them. This is your garden, and while it may seem rather morbid, you love it all the same. You love these plants that grow in the upturned soil that brings about riches. You love the tree that grew from the woman’s corpse who died far too long ago for her headstone to make much sense. All you know about her was that she was a mother, and she was born in 1840. The tree’s roots wrap around her body, and takes advantage of the nutrients that would otherwise be wasted.  
It’s under this ghost tree that Dave tells you how much he hates the plants that grow from Mr. Strider’s grave.  
“How could someone so awful make something so beautiful?” He asks, and you can tell he’s exasperated. He doesn’t understand it.  
“Sometimes awful things make things that are pretty.” You reply, staring down at your hands. Your knuckles are marred and marked by fights that brought about nothing for anyone.  
“Like what?” He scoffs, angry, and justified in such.  
“Those flowers. You. Sometimes bad things make pretty things and hurt those pretty things without realizing what they made. Those flowers don’t know pain, or hurt, they grew because that bad thing is fading away.”  
“I’m not a pretty thing.”  
“Maybe not. But you used to be pretty. I assume.”  
“Didn’t you imply pretty things stay pretty?”  
“No. Pretty things always break. To most people they stop being pretty when they break.”  
There’s a lull in conversation.  
“So what about you?” He asks, staring at you as you tear grass from the dirt and kiss it before blowing it away into the wind from your palm.  
“What about me?” You respond, staring at the blades as they fly away to settle on a smaller tree’s roots. It will be a pecan tree. You hope you live long enough to see it bear the fruits of its labor.  
“When do things stop being pretty to you?” He tries again, looking guarded.  
“When I forget about them.” You say, thinking of your mother, and Jaspers.  
“Even the person that hurts you?” He seems aggressive about this one, and you don’t understand it. Eridan doesn’t hurt you, he just tries to make an imprint. He’s you with less control over his emotions. You hate him, but you understand him.  
“Even the person that hurts me.” You repeat in a quiet mantra. Your head rests in your arms as you draw your knees up to your chest. “He’s like me. He wants to be remembered. Neither of us know how. We’re both forgettable.”  
“I don’t think you’re forgettable. Don’t talk like that.”  
You laugh at that and stand, brushing away the dirt from the pale pink sundress from your mother’s old wardrobe. You covet this part of her. The sky turns a deep shade of blue, and you realize how late it’s gotten. Eridan will be home soon. He’ll know if you’re not there.  
“I should get home.” You say, in a tone that almost shows how sad you are to leave. You look back at him, and he looks at you.  
“Don’t forget about me while I’m gone.” You tease, and he rolls his eyes.  
You leave, and when you get home Eridan is waiting for you in the day room. You say nothing to him, and begin to walk towards the stairs. He pursues you, questioning where you’ve been. You don’t respond to him. He yanks at your hair, and you punch him in the jaw. He cries.  
You can’t remember the last time either of you have cried. He sits down on the steps and cries. He holds his head in his hands and looks so shaken and wounded. It is now that you realize how jumpy he’s been. You sit down next to him, and for the first time, comfort him. He cries into your chest, and he clutches to you like a lifeline. You don’t ask him what’s wrong, and instead play with his hair, like he said Feferi used to do with him when they were kids.  
That’s when he tells you.  
“I killed her. I loved her s-so much and I-I-I killed her!” He’s so upset. He holds onto you tighter.  
You aren’t shaken.  
“How did you kill her, baby?” You ask, your voice warm as you try to pretend you’re talking to your dead mother, or your dead cat Jaspers, or someone else you can’t quite place the name on. You don’t care about him like this, but you can pretend for a short while.  
“We were fighting, and, and she tripped over the balcony curtain, and- oh god.” He screams and cries, balling his hands into fists, clutching against your sundress. You feel disappointed, because now he’s ruined this beautiful thing from your past, not yet ruined by the present day. “She fell on the fence, and she looked so scared!”  
You pet his hair until he falls asleep against you. You drag his limp body up the stairs and into his bedroom. It’s no longer your shared space to give the illusion of marriage. Police come later, and you explain to them what happened. They want to question Eridan. You do not protest.  
They take you in as well, and ask you what you know. You explain swiftly and without doubt. They press more, saying someone who knew their husband killed someone wouldn’t be this calm. You smile, because you can’t retaliate like you would with Eridan. You can’t burn their names to the dirt and make their ashes into something beautiful as they fade away from memory.  
“He didn’t do it on purpose, she tripped on the curtains near the balcony, like he told me. Besides, I’ve seen my fair share of tragedies, officers, it follows me around.” You respond in as kind a voice you can muster considering the circumstances. They seem a bit disturbed, but complacent, with your answer, and you are free to leave.  
Eridan is set free as well, with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, you think. You were almost hoping he would be locked up for his actions. But you suppose tragedy does follow you. You feel the bubbling rage begin to boil up inside you. Nothing goes your way does it? You hurt your mother’s feelings without meaning to, and she ends up dead, Jaspers dies because you forgot to lock the greenhouse door you shared with Jade. He drank water from a lily vase. You feel as if you failed him. And then, you get into a loveless marriage with someone who you despise, and then he doesn’t have the courtesy of removing himself from your life.  
Things get worse from there.  
He cracks down on rules you’ve made clear that you will ignore. He spends more time around you, and blocks you from finding sanctuary in your observatory. He falls in love with you, and you hate him so much. You can’t leave as often as you’d like. You can’t spend your days talking with Dave at the cemetery and watch ants plod along with such purpose. You can’t throw rocks at geese or feed birds or tell your mother how sorry you are when Dave isn’t listening.  
You feel like you’re being set on fire, as if Eridan is purposefully trying to set you ablaze and ruin you. He invites his bum of an older brother into the house. Cronus flirts with you, and you ignore his advances. Making any sort of response only spurs him on. He’s disgusting to you. He opened the door to your observatory one day, and you about near cut his head off. You hate him, but you’re not hatefully attached to him. You just want him out of your life.  
He finds a new person to parasitically steal off of, and you wave him goodbye cheerfully. Eridan appears offended by your joy at his leave. You explain that he’s a leech to those around him. You tell him how Cronus only sticks around in households that don’t require him to work. You tell him how he manipulates people into thinking he’s trying to be better. You say that if he admits he has flaws, that Eridan assumes he’s trying to change, but that he is not.  
He gets angry, but he does not lash out at you. Instead, he smashes a vase against a wall.  
Your mother’s vase.  
You stare at it in horror as the porcelain bits fly across the ornate tiled floors. The flower water inside them spreads against it, falling into the creases like how blood seeps from a wound. Your fists clench at your side, and you watch the way the dying purple roses flutter apart like paper as they reach the floor. Things feel so slowed down as you stare up at him. He looks fearful.  
You take note that you are screaming.  
Your hands are around his neck in a heartbeat. He struggles, he struggles so badly, and you can’t see anything but the replay of the vase shattering against the floor and killing you. You are dead. Eridan killed you. He can’t breathe because your hands are wrapped so tight around his neck. Your thumbs dig deep down into the skin of his neck, pushing down, down, into his windpipe. The backs of your fingers feel his pulse jumping in your hand. It slows down with every passing moment he’s in your grasp. You feel so powerful like this. You can tell he’s losing this fight, he kicks at you, and you feel so numb with adrenaline that you can’t think straight. The pain doesn’t register as what it is.  
“Pretty things break.”  
His grip slacks, his hits cease, his eyes roll back in his skull, but he’s not dead, and you finally release him. He falls to the floor with a wet smack against the stained flower water. He heaves and tries to fill his lungs with air that his body so craved for. He can’t do it fast enough to be fulfilling, but he stays alive. Your feet are bleeding, and you still don’t feel it. You leave the estate, and you don’t ask to.  
Eridan can’t stop you. He’s a weak little thing, and although he’s pretty, you’re beginning to forget him. You don’t tread lightly around him. You don’t pretend to be a soft pretty little thing. You are ugly, and you’ve always been an ugly thing. Sure, you look beautiful, but you are not beautiful. You are awful and cruel and cold and you want to be warm. You crave that warmth you feel in the sun at the graveyard.  
You want that lovely feeling in your chest. You want to feel as dainty as you’re treated at the graveyard. You want to feel the real, soft, grass under your toes and talk to Dave about stupid things.  
When you arrive at the graveyard. You fall in a patch of flowers, and you do not want to remove yourself from them. It’s nice, because you know these flowers don’t hurt you. They’re nice, and you think idly that the graveyard needs more nice things.  
You shouldn’t be in such a nice place, you think, frowning. You shouldn’t be in such a wonderfully nice place. You’re so mean. You should be back at the estate, and you should let marriage with Eridan be your punishment.  
You don’t. You fall asleep.

 

You first hear voices that fade in and out. You feel sick. You raise your hand slightly, and there seems to be a sound of relief. Your confused by this. Why should anyone be relieved that you still breathe? That you still waste such precious air.  
Things flash, you don’t understand them. At one point, you attempt to speak, but all you can do is make a measly croak of pain. Your bones ache, and your feet hurt badly, and you can feel your head pound. Everything hurts, and you try to thrash, to lash out, to escape from whatever holds you captive. There are many hands, and then there is one glowing impossibility that makes you think you are home. You feel that lovely feeling in your chest and the warmth that spreads quick and fast into your cold bones.  
You calm down. You cease to exist for a while.

 

You awaken to white walls. You begin to panic, because this looks likes the place your teachers would store you when you scared the other children too much. You’d be left on your own for hours on end and bawl your eyes out into your hand. But you never told your mother, because the other children said that crying was for babies, and therefore you made the connection that crying was weak.  
There’s a hand on your arm and you follow the trail it leads.  
Dave looks tired, and you’re confused. Why is so tired? Did you fall on a needle or something and keep him awake? What did you do? He laughs and says nothing.  
It would appear you’ve said that aloud.  
You laugh at your own poor judgement.  
He doesn’t laugh with you.  
You feel like crying.

 

When you get out of the hospital he’s always there. And sometimes you get annoyed by it. You don’t want him to think your fragile. You don’t want him to see you so beaten. You refuse his help, and consistently tear open the wounds on your feet and have to get them restitched. They hurt, but your ego is salvaged. You’re not taken to the Ampora estate. Instead, you’re taken to your home. The grounds of Lalonde. You left this place abandoned, but still in your hands years ago.  
You feel so happy being there, amongst the halls you grew up in. You feel elated to be among the pictures and paintings from when you lived with your mother. There’s dust everywhere, and you and Dave have to clean the rather large house for two days straight to give it it’s proper look again. He didn’t want you to help, but you insisted. You know this house. This house knows you.  
You sit in front of Jaspers’s grave. The mausoleum to him seemed stupid to you at the time. You felt it was a jab at you at the time. You were young and disillusioned. You know now how much your mother cared for you. You feel like crying. You want to let it all out.  
You never do.

Your name is Rose Lalonde. You love the observatory. You love tea. You love flowers. You love writing. You love being around Dave Strider. You love Dave’s laugh. You still love your mother. You still love Jaspers. You still love the cemetery. 

The backyard of the Lalonde’s grounds has gone untended for years. You feel awful for leaving it alone for so long. The dirt hasn’t been turned in so long. The flowers all seem so dead. When Dave finally leaves, not telling you where he’s going, you begin fixing what you forgot about.  
You add this place to the things you love.  
You make order out of the wild flowers. You don’t relocate them; you simply turn them into much more manageable beauties. You tear out the weeds, but the flowers still look like they’re dying. You feel so sad that they still look dead. You pulled out all the weeds, why can’t they become alive again? Why are they still falling to pieces?  
Dave comes home, no, he comes back. This is not his home. His home is in California. His place is with people who won’t destroy him piece by piece by just existing around him.  
Dave comes back, and he has pages upon pages of stories from the observatory. You almost forgot about them. He hands you them, and he looks at you differently. You begin to get nervous. You feel as if you’ve done something wrong. He begins talking.  
You don’t know what to do.  
He tells you he saw what you write on the walls, what you write to yourself. You’re horrified. You’re mortified. You pull away, clutching the plethora of papers to you tightly. He looks confused, and you feel so exposed, so fragile. You hate it. You hate it so much.  
You flee up to the observatory. Here the walls are patterned and beautiful.  
You lock the door.

You stay there for two days, hunger gnawing at your stomach and mind muddled with shame and regret. You look through the telescope at the stars. You watch them twinkle up close. You don’t memorize their patterns, because then you’ll lose their magic. Then you won’t wish on them. If you make them scientific, you’ll lose the only thing you can romanticize.  
Dave unlocks the door eventually, he sets your type-writer down beside you, and puts a plate of terribly made food next to it. He leaves, and he doesn’t press you for reasons. He knows you want to be alone here.  
You want him to leave. You want him to realize how disgusting you are and leave you alone so you can rot away with the garden in the backyard. You hate how the flowers are dying, but you know all things have to die. You want to wither and droop and be torn apart by time just like them.  
You are not a flower. You flower, yes, but you are not one of them. You aren’t fragile. You can’t splinter and fall apart the second someone presses you too harshly. You withstand. You can be uprooted, but you always find another place to dig yourself into. You would have to be burned before you stopped going on. You realize you’re the weeds.  
You hate weeds.  
You add yourself to the list of things that you hate.

In two weeks’ time, you’ve recovered from the emotional stress. You act exactly the same around Dave, and you fall back into the same rhythm. You write wherever now, type up whatever you can whenever you can. You don’t have to hole yourself up in one room, you’re free to roam as you please. You and Dave reinstall the swan room, the shitty bed being the perfect place to talk about existential crises in children’s novels, or how politicians are hilarious.  
The swan room is a mutual project carried on out of pure ‘irony’, as Dave would put it. The entire place becomes ridiculously ornate, and is up kept very well. Which is odd, considering how it truly is just a rather extrapolated joke. You enjoy it though, and wouldn’t dare complain.  
The grandeur is short-lived, as Dave does have to return to California. You’re sad when he leaves, but you don’t question it. You think he’s sensitive to audio, as the second the sound of rushing water beneath them fades out, he begins to get anxious. You say goodbye to him at the train station, kiss his cheek in a chaste manner, and remove yourself from the presence of so many people. You’re not too good with crowds.  
You don’t stick around to see what reaction he may or may not have had. You don’t stick around even if you think you heard your name. It’s best to detach yourself early on before you destroy yourself again. The train leaves. You go home. 

You visit the Ampora estate once more, if only to gather the last of your things. Cronus is there. Eridan is not. Cronus glares at you. You raise a brow in return. You gather the last of your things. Everything you own or once owned, now returned to you, and you leave without comment. Cronus calls you a few names as you leave, and you couldn’t care less. The second you’re outside the Ampora estate, you smile so hard your face hurts. You feel free. You feel so so free.

You publish your book, finally. It’s quite the hit. Of course, you first had to gain a reputation through your short stories. You publish most of the ones based on the graveyard people through newspapers, and literary magazines. You keep the ones about your mother and Mr. Strider to yourself. You love the attention. There are many interviews, and most of them seem to decide to focus on your personal life as oppose to your work.  
You avoid questions that get too personal, and they learn to take a hint.  
You take up ballet again, and take advantage of the lack of wizard statues around the house now. You make every room your own, except the swan room, that’s for two. The swan room is a pas de deux. Everything else is your own to claim.  
Your name rises, you disconnect yourself from the media, and there are quite a few instances of blackmail being shipped to you. You laugh, because your name means nothing to you. Your image means nothing to you. A woman seems to be rising in popularity and controversy, but not many bad things said about her get past her firm control on censorship. She seems the most interested in you, and if you were younger and more naïve you’d see her visit to you as flirting, rather than what it was.  
She was sizing you up.  
You don’t show her around your home, you keep her contained outside your front door. You do not offer her any drinks. You are polite, but firm in your refusal to allow her access to your home.  
You don’t trust the woman who comes to interview you.  
She seems disappointed, and asks you some questions about Dave Strider. You’re rather confused. What brought this up?  
“He’s been talking about your books in the media lately, saying he read them while they were still a work in progress. Is this true?”  
“Yes.” You respond simply.  
You have the feeling you’ve seen this before, in another time, in another place, surrounded by different people. For a moment instead of the interviewer’s face, you see the flash of teeth, of fuchsia, of a golden weapon that makes your stomach churn. She isn’t what you see in passing, of course. She’s just a woman who’s far too pushy. But she makes you uncomfortable.  
She continues asking questions, but you decline to answer any more of her inquiries.  
You decide you should talk to Dave again. 

In the end, it is he who contacts you first. He’s at your door, having grown a stubble since the last you’ve seen one another. You talk again seamlessly, and there’s a lot less tension between the two of you. With how long you’ve been apart, you thought things would be difficult. They’re not. Talking with Dave is as easy now as it was back in the cemetery.  
You both relax on the swan bed, in the swan room, catching up and reminding yourself that this is real. He holds your hand. You do not object to it. He tells you about John, about how his life has been, how he read everything you wrote. You apologize for not keeping up with him yourself. He says that its fine. You still feel bad.  
“They’re mostly just bad jokes that people thought were metaphors.” He says, shaking his head.  
“That’s rather fitting.” You snicker, looking over at him.  
“How so?”  
“Purple prose.”  
He laughs at that, and you feel content to just lay there and soak up his presence. You want to revel in his very existence, you want to take up all of his time and never let go. Your cold bones feel warm here, in the swan bed, surrounded by inside jokes and terrible puns, with him whispering like he’s telling a secret.  
You tell him so, that you love this. That you’re adding it to the list of things that you really love.  
“Tell me what’s on your list.” He says, voice questioning.  
You recite your list, as if you practiced it. You haven’t, but you do think of it quite a bit.  
“I love the observatory. I love tea. I love flowers. I love writing. I love being around Dave Strider. I love Dave’s laugh. I still love my mother. I still love Jaspers. I still love the cemetery. I love the sound of rushing water beneath my feet. I love the backyard of dying flowers. I love lemonade. I love oranges. I love the way the windows make the room look like it’s dancing early in the morning when the sun rises up. I love purple prose. I love red. I love Dave Strider.”  
It’s the silence that follows as you stare up at the ceiling, that makes your heart grow heavy. You watch as sunlight spills into the room and lights up the dust particles traveling across the room. You watch them flutter whenever the air moves, and watch as they fade from view and are eclipsed by something more physically present.  
He doesn’t recite a list, but you feel what he means when he kisses you. It’s sweet, and you think that kisses are much better than bruises. You can put away the sharpness of your soul if you could keep this. He pulls away, and you crave more, but you wait for him. You always wait for him. He’s worth waiting for, you think.  
“I love purple prose.” He says, and you smile.  
“I am purple prose.”  
“You are purple prose.”

**Author's Note:**

> End me
> 
>  
> 
> Also tell me about any mistakes I'm trying here okay


End file.
